


nine ten start again

by Miss_Six



Series: Sideverses [3]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, POV Second Person, Secret Santa, idek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-29 15:46:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17206241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Six/pseuds/Miss_Six
Summary: It is...but it isn't.[or]A progression in ten parts.(For a Secret Santa, author to be revealed soon!)





	nine ten start again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OnlySkyAboveMe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlySkyAboveMe/gifts).



> Who am I? Only [bucketofrice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucketofrice/pseuds/bucketofrice) knows! Thanks for the quick beta ;)

_one_

She has always been there.

Even when you were an awkward teenager going through the motions of dating, even when you were a grown man going through the most difficult times of your life. Even as you rebelled against it, because some other, contrary part of you resented the fact that you didn’t really have a choice in your _togetherness_ , because what nine-year-old has the capacity to make choices that will affect the rest of their lives?

None of them, and certainly not you. So you refuse it, deny it, push it down so deep that you can almost say that you think of her as a sister without flinching.

(It’s not entirely a lie. You’ve never had a sister, so you don’t _think_ that’s what it would be like, but you certainly wouldn’t know.

Although your friends who have sisters definitely don’t behave the way the two of you do.)

Still, she’s there. She’s always there, whether you want her to be or not, but if you’re being completely honest you want her around more often than not. Her presence is comforting, soothing. She’s the one that keeps you grounded, and talks you off the ledge when your anger is in danger of spilling over and destroying the one thing you love above everything else.

That _one thing_ isn’t skating. It’s your friendship...relationship...whatever you want to call it. Because if you did anything to ruin it, you wouldn’t be able to live with yourself.

 

_two_

He’s not your boyfriend.

No matter how much the press, and your fans, and your friends (the few you’re able to handle, with everything else on your plate), your family and yes — if you’re being completely honest, even you yourself — might want it to be so. He is _not_ your boyfriend.

But you watch him with his girlfriends, and you watch your friends with their significant others and you wonder what the big deal is. None of them seem to have what you have, which is trust, in spades. Deep, unrelenting trust. You have to trust each other, with the way he has to throw you around while sliding on ice with blades strapped to your feet. If you didn’t trust him completely — and vice versa — none of it would be possible.

(You tell yourself that _it_ is competing, winning, pushing the limits of your sport. But underneath is the knowledge that _it_ is the bond that the two of you have.)

Your bafflement over conventional relationships only increases when you start dating. They’re nice enough, they’re decent in bed, but your interactions seem...lacking.

It takes years for you to finally acknowledge what you already knew — that you have looked at all the men you’ve dated as poor, second-string substitutes for him.

And you wonder; does he feel the same?

 

_three_

The changes in your life have all been hugely obvious to anyone paying attention. It’s a strange feeling to be able to trace your own emotional development through interviews and news articles. From the cocky young upstart to the irresponsible party boy to the _you_ of now, the one you think you like the best, because it’s the you that seems to have some semblance of maturity

It also seems to be the one she likes the best, if the change in your dynamic is any indication.

Her changes have been just as huge, but all under the surface, slow but steady shifts in her demeanor, like tectonic plates drifting around as her core burns brilliant white-hot beneath her skin. Lately it seems like it’s solidified into a spine of steel; she knows what she wants and is going for it full bore.

She sets up her goals like dominoes that she can knock down in rapid succession. School, skating, career; all helpless in the face of her determination. Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like just another domino in her sights.

Domino or not — you fall.

You always do.

 

_four_

Your performances come together in a way they never have before.

The two of you have always been magic on the ice, but now there’s an electricity that ignites the arena atmosphere and forces everyone to take notice. You’re back, and taking no prisoners.

Which is why you can’t deny there’s a different kind of magic seeping into your interactions, a tenderness that permeates every minute spent together. It’s a gentle kind of spell being woven into the very threads of your being. There’s been a change in the way you need each other —--  because there’s no one else in the world who understands what you’ve been through as well as he does. Even the parts he wasn’t there for.

(You’ve forgiven him for the times he was absent in your life. You’re not sure if he’s forgiven himself.)

Getting paired as children wasn’t your choice, not really. Your shared path to becoming Olympic gold medalists was mostly your choice. The decision to retire was a reluctant but necessary choice.

The comeback? Entirely your choice. And entirely his, too.

And perhaps that’s the difference.

 

_five_

 

When you tell the world you’ll always do it for Tess, it’s the unadulterated truth. Why else would you dive back into something so hard on your body, your mind, and your social life?

(Yes, you love skating more than breathing, but competing? Now that’s the thing you’d do only for her. Only _with_ her.)

Not that it’s something you didn’t want to do. When you both started talking about it, for the first couple of weeks you still thought it was a lark, a what-if. A “wouldn’t it be funny” kind of scenario. And then you realized that you were spending more energy trying to talk yourself out of the idea instead of dismissing it. It was definitely something you wanted.

But two seasons, a Worlds title, and that elusive GPF win later, you’re still not sure what exactly she wants.

For a while, what she wanted was _you-the-teammate_ , the you that’s just as dedicated as she is, the you that understands her because you have to. The you she can trust to have his hands in the right places so she can soar with all the grace of a ballerina in flight.

And that’s enough, for a time. She needs you and that’s enough. You need her in the same way, so you tell yourself that it’s enough.

But after a time...it’s not enough.

And you start to wonder what it would be like if she wanted you as a man. What it would be like to fill in the pieces that have always been absent.

Does she feel those missing pieces with the same intensity as you feel them?

It’s a question you can’t bring yourself to ask, because there’s only one answer that wouldn’t break you in two.

 

_six_

Everything happened exactly the way you had hoped it would, but it still feels like the best surprise you’ve ever experienced, like every birthday and Christmas you’ve ever had all rolled into what amounts to about twenty minutes of your life.

And when he scoops you into his arms - you know that’s how he feels, too.

 

_seven_

You’re waiting for something you can’t articulate.

It’s not that you don’t think you ever could, it’s that you haven’t had time to even try. This tour, that show, another photoshoot, ‘come look at proofs,’ ‘put on this shirt’ and ‘let’s go’. It all feels like an elaborate scheme to delay the inevitable.

But you sit next to her and take pictures with her and dance with her in the street in the meantime… so if it’s a scheme, it’s a damn good one.

 

_eight_

He’s not going to wait much longer, this much you know. You’ve tried to express it without actually saying it in the best way you know how, but you also know him. You know he needs to hear what you’re not saying.

Every beat after every goodnight said, every breath after you’ve finished fucking and you lay together tangled in hotel sheets, it almost breeches your lips but still you stay silent.

In your more vindictive moments you vow to keep it that way. _He could say it first,_ you think, _but he hasn’t._

The reasons that he hasn’t go unacknowledged.

 

_nine_

She’s growing anxious over the vague, undefined nature of your _us-ness_ , you can tell, but you let her twist in the wind a bit. Cruel? Maybe, but you have experienced firsthand what happens when she feels pressured. Not that you haven’t forgiven her; you did, a long time ago, but you’re not going to make the same mistake twice.

Besides, there’s a kind of easy domesticity that wasn’t there before, and you’re loathe to interrupt it. It’s there in the way she asks you to come take pictures of her in front of various buildings, how you carry bags for her (Alma Moir raised a gentleman, thank you very much), how she doesn’t even flinch when you reach up to tuck a flower into her hair.

Why would you change any of it, if you don’t have to?

 

_ten_

It happens on an unremarkable Tuesday morning.

You wake up in the same bed, which is also unremarkable, whether you’ve had sex the night before or not. Facing each other, foreheads touching, probably making a shape of a heart in a disgustingly appropriate manner.

“I’m in love with you,” you blurt out, trying not to think about the ramifications of that sentence.

There’s silence, for just a moment, and then he replies. “I’m in love with you, too.”

“What does that mean?” you ask, because you’ve never allowed yourself to think past those five words.

“Does it matter?” he asks.

It doesn’t.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> We had a word count that was flagrantly ignored. Apologies!


End file.
